A travel policy defines what counts as "in policy" for flights, hotels, cars, trains, and related spend on Perk. It gives travelers clear guidance on what they can book, and gives your finance team automatic compliance checks on every booking. 

Use this article to understand the settings available for each travel type and how they work together, so you can decide how to set up your own policy.

Travel policies in Perk

A travel policy is the set of rules Perk uses to decide whether a booking is in or out of policy. You can configure a different set of rules for each travel category — flights, hotels, cars, and trains — as well as guidance for in-trip spend like taxis and meals. Together, these rules give travelers clear expectations before they book, and give finance automatic, consistent compliance checks without manual review of every trip.

You can create a default travel policy, then add more policies for specific travelers. If a traveler doesn’t have a specific policy assigned, Perk applies the default policy. When someone books a trip, Perk shows whether the booking is in or out of policy. By default, travelers are notified but not stopped from booking out of policy. To route out-of-policy trips for review, set up a travel approval process.

Perk gives you ready-made templates so your policy can go live in minutes, with every setting still fully editable afterwards. You can choose from:

• Standard policy (recommended) — the most popular starting point for new customers, with balanced budgets and no booking-window restriction.
• Strict policy — tighter budgets and mandatory booking windows, for organizations that want closer cost control.
• Build your own — for teams that already know their rules and want to set up flights, hotels, cars, and trains from scratch.

For example, here's how the Standard and Strict templates compare on a few key settings. These figures are illustrative examples, not fixed defaults — you can edit any of them after you start from a template.

You'll find these settings under Settings > Travel management > Travel policies. 

Note: Your implementation specialist will walk through where each individual field lives for your setup and help you configure it based on your operational needs.

Flight policy settings

Flight rules in Perk control which fares are bookable by default and which need to go through approval, based on cabin, timing, route, and price. You can set up:

• Cabin class restrictions, such as restricting bookings to economy class by default.
• A higher cabin class allowance for longer flights, such as permitting business class once flight duration passes a set threshold (for example, 6 hours).
• A one-way flight cap, defining how much a one-way flight should cost.
• Booking windows, which set the minimum number of days before departure a flight must be booked.
• Dynamic or maximum budgets, applying a set percentage gap based on the cheapest fare or the median fare in the search results.
• Route-based exceptions, setting a specific price cap between two destinations, such as a higher allowance for Dubai to London than the general policy.
• Domestic flight exceptions, applying a separate, typically lower, price cap for in-country travel instead of the general international budget.
• Corporate rates, so fares from airlines you've negotiated deals with are excluded from your budget limits.

Hotel policy settings

Hotel rules in Perk control which properties are bookable by default, based on quality, timing, and cost, with room to flex the budget by market. You can set up:

• A maximum star rating allowance.
• Booking windows for how far in advance a hotel must be booked.
• Dynamic or maximum budgets, based on the median rate in the search results. The cheapest-option method used for flights doesn't apply to hotels.
• Budget exceptions set per city or per country, allowing a different nightly cap than the overall maximum budget, such as a higher allowance for Dubai than for a lower-cost market.
• Corporate rates, so rates from hotel chains you've negotiated deals with are excluded from your budget limits.

Car policy settings

Car rules in Perk let you set up:

• Daily budgets for car rentals.
• Booking windows for how far in advance a car must be booked.
• Car type, covering small cars, medium cars, large cars, high-end cars, and an "elite options" upgrade tier within each type.
• Corporate rates, so rates from car providers you've negotiated deals with are excluded from your budget limits.

Train policy settings

Train rules in Perk let you set up:

• Dynamic or maximum budgets for train fares.
• Cabin class restrictions for trains.
• Corporate rates, so rates from train carriers you've negotiated deals with are excluded from your budget limits.

In-trip spend

Perk also lets you give travelers instructions for in-trip spend, such as taxis and meals.

Note: In-trip guidance is informational. It doesn't appear during the booking flow itself, so travelers see it separately rather than at the point of booking.

Creating a travel policy

To create a travel policy:

1. Go to Settings > Travel management > Travel policies.
2. Click New travel policy.
3. Enter a name for the policy and click Create travel policy.
4. On the new travel policy, select the type of travel you want to update and click Edit.
5. Select the Default budget, Budget exceptions, and Advanced settings.
6. Click Save changes.

Once you’ve created a policy, assign travelers to it.

Assigning travelers to a travel policy

To assign travelers to a travel policy:

1. Go to the People page.
2. Search for the person and select their name.
3. Go to the Organization tab, and under Policies and approvals, select Edit.
4. Under Travel policy, search for or select the policy from the list.
5. Select Save.

Editing a travel policy

You can edit a travel policy at any time. To edit a travel policy:

1. Go to Settings > Travel management > Travel policies.
2. On the policy you want to edit, select the travel type and select Edit.
3. Update the setting and select Save changes.